Auriga Constellation: The Charioteer and Capella
Auriga, the Charioteer, is nearly overhead this week and is a star pattern with many meanings and legends. Learn more!
Quick Reference: The Auriga Constellation
- What it is: Auriga, the Charioteer, a pentagon of five stars.
- Brightest star: Capella, the brilliant golden-yellow “She-Goat.”
- Look for: The Kids, three tiny stars next to Capella, including Epsilon Aurigae.
- When to look: Soon after nightfall, when Auriga rides nearly overhead in the cooler months.
- Shared star: El Nath, the southernmost star, is shared with Taurus, the Bull.
Step outside soon after nightfall this week and look nearly straight up. There you will find the Auriga constellation, the Charioteer, laid out as a pentagon of five stars. The brightest of them is the “She-Goat,” the brilliant golden-yellow star Capella. Auriga is one of those old star patterns where the pictures and the meanings of the star names show a hopeless mixture of antique conceptions, a goat herder in one telling and a horse trainer in the next. Here is how to find it, what the names mean, and the legends folded into it.
How to Find the Auriga Constellation
Auriga is an easy catch once you know the shape. Start soon after dark and look for a five-sided figure, a pentagon, riding high overhead. The golden-yellow glow at one corner is Capella, and it is one of the brightest stars in the whole northern sky, so it gives you an anchor to work from. The pattern climbs highest on the clear, crisp nights of late fall and winter, when the air is steady and the stars hold sharp. If you want help picking the cloudless evenings, NASA’s monthly skywatching guide is a good plain-English companion to a dark backyard.
If the shape does not jump out at first, you are in good company. Plenty of star patterns take some imagining, as we explain in our look at why constellations do not really look like anything. Give your eyes 20 minutes to adjust to the dark and the pentagon settles into place.
The Ancient Legends of Auriga
According to the most ancient legend, Auriga was a goat herder and the patron of shepherds and all who tend flocks. The Greeks and Romans, though, made him a famed trainer of horses and the inventor of the four-horse chariot. That mixed-up history is exactly why the old allegorical pictures and the star names do not quite agree. The same figure herds goats in one story and races chariots in the next.
The pictures try to hold both ideas at once. Auriga is shown holding a whip in one hand, in deference to the Charioteer story, but in the crook of the other arm, next to Capella, are three tiny stars known as The Kids. One of The Kids, the star known as Epsilon Aurigae, is an oddity. It has a thick cloud of dust slowly revolving around it, and at intervals of 27-years, that cloud passes in front of Epsilon and noticeably dims its light. The last such “eclipse” was in 2009, so we will have to wait until the year 2036 for Epsilon to dim down again.
The Stars of Auriga
The Auriga constellation’s southernmost star, El Nath, is actually shared with Taurus, the Bull. El Nath goes by the name Beta Tauri when it is counted as the tip of one of the Bull’s horns. Yet it also answers to Gamma Aurigae, marking the heel of the Charioteer. One star, two constellations, two names, depending on which old picture you are reading.
Just east of El Nath is the point on the Galactic Equator that lies directly opposite the center of our galaxy. When we look toward this region, we are looking out at the sparsely settled suburbs of our own city of stars, away from the crowded downtown of the Milky Way’s core.
Capella Is Not One Star
It is interesting to note that Capella is really a multiple star system. A smaller star orbits just 70 million miles from Capella in 104 days, while two tiny companion stars orbit the main pair nearly a trillion miles away. To picture the distances, a scale model of this system would show the main pair as two globes 13 and 7 inches in diameter and ten feet apart, while the two tiny companions would each be 0.7 inch in diameter, 420 feet apart, and 21 miles from the main pair.
So when you look up at that single golden point of light, you are really seeing four stars blended into one by sheer distance. The eye sees a lamp; the math sees a small family spread across miles of empty space.
Watching Auriga Through the Year
Auriga is a cold-weather friend. It rides nearly overhead on autumn and winter evenings, fades into the western dusk by spring, and returns to the morning sky in late summer. The pentagon and golden Capella are a steady marker through the darkest, longest nights of the year, the same nights when the Moon does much of its showing off. If you like to plan your evenings by the sky, our full Moon dates and times tell you which nights the moonlight will wash the fainter stars out and which will leave the Charioteer crisp and clear.
And the same clear, calm nights that are good for stargazing are good for working by the sky in other ways. Our Gardening by the Moon Calendar ties the rhythm of the heavens to the rhythm of the garden, the way folks have done for generations.
The Auriga Constellation: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Auriga constellation?
Auriga is the Charioteer, a constellation laid out as a pentagon of five stars riding high in the northern sky. Its brightest star is the golden-yellow Capella, the “She-Goat.” In the oldest legend Auriga was a goat herder, while the Greeks and Romans made him a trainer of horses and the inventor of the four-horse chariot.
What is the brightest star in Auriga?
Capella, the golden-yellow “She-Goat,” is the brightest star in Auriga and one of the brightest in the northern sky. It is really a multiple star system: a smaller star orbits just 70 million miles away in 104 days, while two tiny companion stars orbit the main pair nearly a trillion miles out.
What are The Kids in Auriga?
The Kids are three tiny stars next to Capella, tucked in the crook of the Charioteer’s arm. One of them, Epsilon Aurigae, has a thick cloud of dust revolving around it that passes in front of the star every 27 years and dims its light. The last such eclipse was in 2009, so the next will come in 2036.
Why does El Nath belong to two constellations?
El Nath, the southernmost star of Auriga, sits where the Charioteer and Taurus, the Bull, meet. It is called Beta Tauri when counted as the tip of one of the Bull’s horns, and Gamma Aurigae when it marks the heel of the Charioteer. It is one star with two names, shared between the two old pictures.
When is the best time to see Auriga?
Look soon after nightfall on the clear nights of late fall and winter, when Auriga rides nearly overhead. Give your eyes about 20 minutes to adjust to the dark, and pick an evening when the Moon is not too bright so the fainter stars stand out.
Where does the name Auriga come from?
Auriga is the Latin word for charioteer. The name reflects the Greek and Roman telling, in which the figure trained horses and invented the four-horse chariot. The older Mediterranean tradition remembered him instead as a goat herder and the patron of shepherds, which is why Capella, the “She-Goat,” and The Kids sit at the heart of the pattern.
Joe Rao
Joe Rao is an esteemed astronomer who writes for Space.com, Sky & Telescope, and Natural History Magazine. Mr. Rao is a regular contributor to the Farmers' Almanacand serves as an associate lecturer for the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.
- Joe Rao
- Joe Rao
- Joe Rao
- Joe Rao
